


On This Christmas Eve (I Wish I Were With You)

by Caro_the_Poet



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Christmas, Established Relationship, F/M, Light Angst, Shipmas 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-19
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:47:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28149339
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caro_the_Poet/pseuds/Caro_the_Poet
Summary: She doesn’t say it, and neither does he, but in both their minds are the memories of all the years they loved each other but put their careers first. They’ve never regretted it, not really, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t acutely conscious of the sacrifices they’ve made.
Relationships: Samantha "Sam" Carter/Jack O'Neill
Comments: 18
Kudos: 45





	On This Christmas Eve (I Wish I Were With You)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Decorating
> 
> Also, Merry Christmas Darling is my favorite song in the whole world. I couldn't _not_ use it in a Christmas fic!

He hangs the red-and-green stockings on the mantle, stepping back and squinting at them to make sure they’re hanging straight. Three stockings, evenly spaced, names knitted into the top border: _Jack, Carter,_ and _Leia._ He looks over at the lanky Husky curled up in the corner of the room. “Watcha think, girl?” 

Leia lifts her head and wags her tail approvingly.

“Good,” says Jack. “Next—mistletoe.”

It seems silly to hang it when Carter is far away on the other side of the galaxy, in command of the _General Hammond._ But it’s tradition, so he does it anyway.

She’s been gone for two months and he and Leia have been moping for most of it. Leia openly, Jack hiding behind his characteristic sarcasm. But moping just the same.

She’s gone on long missions before, and missed more than a few Christmases. But this time has felt harder than the rest. He sensed, though she never said, that this time she hadn’t wanted to go. She had clung to him a little tighter, a little longer, and looked into his eyes with that slightly pinched face that he knows means she’s trying not to cry. And then she’d smiled bravely and boarded the _Hammond_. General Samantha Carter, soldier to the core, never shirks her duty, no matter how much it hurts. She’s doggedly stubborn and it’s one of the reasons he loves her so much.

And one of the reasons she drives him crazy.

But to be fair, it’s been a bit of a difficult year. He’d had some heart trouble back in the summer—nothing, really, just a little scare and a stern talking to from the doctor about eating less cake and more leafy greens—but Carter had taken it hard. She’d gotten quiet and tense and pinched-looking, and sometimes he woke in the night to find her wrapped all the way around him, sleeping with her face buried against his chest, as if she were afraid that if she let go he might disappear.

But tonight, he isn’t going to dwell on any of that. Tomorrow Cassie and little Janet and Daniel and Teal’c will come for gifts and Christmas dinner. And tonight—tonight is Christmas Eve, and Christmas Eve is sacred. Even when Carter is far away, Christmas Eve has always been for _them._

So he hangs the mistletoe and plugs in the lights on the Christmas tree and puts on some Christmas music.

_The lights on my tree_  
_I wish you could see_  
_I wish it every day._

Nothing like Karen Carpenter crooning in the background to make you feel happy and sad and nostalgic.

*

It’s Christmas Eve and Sam has finally gotten an hour to herself. _No rest for the starship commander,_ she thinks wryly. She rummages in one of the few drawers in her quarters and pulls out an ornament that Jack had given her on their first Christmas together: a bass with a gaping mouth, wearing a Santa hat, with the words _Merry Fishmas_ printed on the side. 

Usually it makes her smile, but tonight she feels a traitorous burning in her throat and her heart contracts painfully. She misses him.

She always misses him, but this time is different. This time she very nearly didn’t go, and every day since she left she has questioned whether she made the right decision.

She looks at her bedside clock, which is set to Colorado time, and closes her eyes for a moment, imagining the scene that must be unfolding at their little house: three feet of snow, glowing in the twinkle lights that Jack would have strung around the porch. Inside, he’s probably hanging the Christmas stockings and the mistletoe, and maybe he has some music on, and is making conversation with Leia while he sips a beer.

Maybe he’s missing her as much as she is missing him.

There are worries filling up her mind that she has never allowed herself to think consciously before—worries that were brought irrevocably to the forefront when Jack ended up in the hospital with chest pain and difficulty catching his breath. It was in those moments that Sam was confronted with the harsh reality that she had never before allowed herself to acknowledge: that Jack, the love of her life, is sixteen years older than she is; and that she’s probably going to outlive him.

This feels entirely different from the danger of combat. He’s nearly seventy and has a bad heart and she’s galaxies away more than she is home. The sheer terror that something might happen to him while she’s gone has her jolting awake in panic most nights. And it doesn’t help that he’s been so damned _blasé_ about it, as if he hadn’t seen the doctor’s grave face and heard the warnings about _stress_ and _diet_ and _lifestyle changes._

He’s so _god_ damned stubborn. She wants to take him by the shoulders, shake him, and beg him to at least think of her and what she would go through if she lost him, even if he doesn’t care about himself. 

She needs a distraction from thinking about it, so she turns her music on.

_Merry Christmas, darling_  
_We’re apart, that’s true_  
_But I can dream, and in my dreams_  
_I’m Christmas-ing with you._

They’ve been apart for enough Christmases that this song has unofficially become theirs. It’s the one they play on the lonely Christmas Eves, each knowing the other is listening to it. Sam wonders when she became such a hopeless romantic. _Definitely Jack’s influence._

She sighs and sets the fish ornament on her bedside table, running her finger over it lovingly. For the first time in her life, she’s thinking seriously of retiring.

*

The living room is glowing with warm yellow twinkle lights, candles, and firelight. The only thing that would make it more perfect is if Carter were over on the couch, curled up in one of his old sweatshirts and fluffy socks, her silvery-blonde hair streaming over her shoulders. He can picture her there, a beer balanced delicately in her fingers, her blue eyes sparkling and her smile outshining all the lights in the room.

He glances over at the couch, almost expecting her to be there; but it’s Leia that is curled up in her spot instead, chewing on the red knitted blanket that’s hanging over the arm.

  


Carter would have yelled at her to _get off the damn couch._

Jack can’t bear to. But he yanks the blanket away from her with as disapproving a glare as he can muster and hangs it over one of the kitchen chairs, ignoring her howl of protest.

  


He glances at the clock. Five minutes.

Carter’s calling in five minutes, and he feels a little giddy from the anticipation. After all this time, she can still make him feel like his sixteen-year-old self on a first date. He leans on the kitchen island, picking up the ceramic Christmas tree decorations one at a time and setting them back in place. He tips one of them upside down and attempts to spin it like a top, only to have it clatter to the floor and shatter into pieces. _Shit. Maybe Carter won’t notice._ The set was a present from Cassie and he makes a mental note to ask her where she got it so maybe he can replace the broken one before next Christmas. He puts the pieces in the trash and sits on the couch next to Leia, trying not to stare too longingly at the tablet that sits on the coffee table, waiting for her call. 

The tablet trills, and Jack jumps and launches himself forward so quickly he nearly knocks it off the table in his eagerness to press the _Answer_ button.

*

Sam nearly bursts into tears at the sight of his smiling face appearing on the screen in front of her. He looks good; he looks happy and reasonably healthy and she inhales the first deep breath she’s been able to take in weeks.

Leia is standing on the couch beside Jack, bouncing on all four feet and making some ridiculous noise between a whine and a howl, sticking her face in front of Jack’s so that she’s blocking Sam’s view of him.

_“Damnit, Leia!”_ Jack gently pushes her away from him and Sam laughs instead of crying.

“Are you letting her get on the couch?” Sam asks accusingly when Jack’s face appears again.

“Wow, really?” Jack arranges his face into a hurt expression. “ _Hi,_ Carter. How _are_ you? How’s space? _Merry Christmas._ ” He turns to Leia and stage whispers, “Mommy’s really turned into a grinch, hasn’t she?” He looks at Sam pointedly and she rolls her eyes at him.

She leans her chin on her hand and just watches them for a moment, taking in the scene back on Earth: the soft light, the twinkling decorations, the man she loves more than anything in the known or unknown universe, and their manic dog who is second only to Jack in her affections. It’s so beautiful and in that moment she can almost imagine she is there.

Leia makes another unearthly noise and Jack says, “Look, you’d better say hello to her before she has an aneurysm.”

Sam snaps out of her reverie. “Heyyyy, Leia.” Leia freezes and stares at the screen, her ears at attention and her muscles quivering under her fluffy gray fur. “Are you being a good girl while I’m gone? Or have you been eating all of Daddy’s socks again?”

Leia manages to look wretchedly guilty and both Sam and Jack burst out laughing. Leia, interpreting this reaction as encouragement, leaps at Jack and pins him against the arm of the couch, lapping his face thoroughly before he can even react.

“ _Jesus,_ Leia!!” he finally manages to splutter, and when Sam can stop laughing she does her best to put on her commander voice and orders, “ _Leia._ Lie down.”

The dog immediately backs off from Jack and settles onto the couch, her head on Jack’s lap. Jack sits up shakily and uses his sleeve to wipe his face. “How do you _do_ that?”

“Guess I’m the dog whisperer. Who knew?” Sam replies with a grin and a shrug. “Is it bad that I’m jealous of a dog?” Her eyes twinkle at him and his breath catches in his throat. 

“ _God,_ I wish you were here,” he says. “You’re a much better kisser than Leia.”

“Good to know.” Sam grins cheekily tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “What’s the weather doing there?”

“Snow, snow, and more snow. All day today. Leia’s been having a blast in it. Cass and little Janet came over the other day and built a giant snowman by the deck. Janet was throwing snowballs for Leia and would lose it laughing every time Leia buried her whole face in the snow, trying to find the snowball.” Jack chuckles at the memory and strokes Leia’s head.

“Sounds perfect,” she replies, a wistful note in her voice.

“It almost was.” 

Her jaw clenches just slightly and he can sense that all is not right with her. He wishes he could reach through the screen, pull her into his arms, and hold her until the tension leaves her body and she feels peace again. “Everything okay, Carter?”

“If I’m being honest, this trip has been a little…rough.” She hesitates, not sure what to say next.

“So?”

“So.” She decides to just say it. “I’m thinking of retiring.”

Jack’s face gets that blank look he has when he doesn’t want his opinion to influence her. “Are you, now?” he asks carefully. She can see he’s deliberately not reacting one way or the other, and she feels a rush of inexplicable anger.

“Damnit, Jack, don’t _do_ that,” she exclaims, with more frustration than she means. “I _know_ you have an opinion about this, and I’m bringing it up because I want to hear it.” 

He cocks his head and squints at her like he’s trying to gauge the seriousness of this news. Finally he sighs. “Sam…is this about last summer?”

“No,” she answers quickly, and he just looks at her and she knows that he knows she’s lying. “I mean, maybe a little, but it isn’t only that.”

“The _hell_ it isn’t, Carter.” He leans forward, shifts Leia away from him, and takes a breath, not wanting to fight during their first actual conversation in weeks. “Look,” he says finally, “you do whatever you want to do with your career, and I’ll support you. Always. You know that. But you can’t make a decision like this based on some insignificant episode I had _months_ ago that hasn’t happened again since.”

“First of all, it wasn’t insignificant and you know it. Secondly--this isn’t just about you!” She’s getting that pinched-up look around her eyes and lips again. “I’m tired. Physically, emotionally…and I’m tired of missing things. I have loved my career, and everything I’ve been able to see and do and accomplish, but…I’ve _missed_ things.”

She doesn’t say it, and neither does he, but in both their minds are the memories of all the years they loved each other but put their careers first. They’ve never regretted it, not really, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t acutely conscious of the sacrifices they’ve made.

She drags her hands over her face and he thinks that he hasn’t seen her this exhausted in a long time.

“I don’t want to miss things anymore. I want to be home with you and Leia; I want to be able to be there for Daniel and for Cassie and little Janet. And I didn’t start thinking about all of it until… what happened last summer.”

He doesn’t respond right away, and Sam wonders, not for the first time, how after all these years it can still be so difficult for them to say what they actually mean. In those first years of knowing each other, they’d formed their own unspoken language out of necessity; but as time went on that method of communication had led to more misunderstanding than anything else.

And yet, here they still are. Sam reflects wearily that the only time they ever fight is when they’re both so scared out of their minds that they’re talking past each other.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” Jack finally says softly. “And I don’t want you to walk away from this incredible thing you’ve built for yourself, and then regret it.”

And there it is, the thing he’s really afraid of. She decides to respond in kind. “And I don’t want to be on the other side of the universe if you have another episode. Because, believe me, there is _nothing_ I would regret more than that.”

He crosses his arms over his chest and considers this. “That’s fair,” he says finally.

“So.” 

“So?”

“This is my last mission, then.” She lets the air out of her lungs and feels so much lighter that she wonders for a split second if the ship’s artificial gravity is malfunctioning.

Jack isn’t prepared for the intensity of his own relief. _Carter will be here. Home. All the time._ He blinks a couple of times, and swallows, and then grins at her. “Well, merry Christmas to _me._ ”

“I hope your gift is satisfactory.”

“God, Carter, you…have no idea,” He almost can’t get the words out, and her eyes are sparkling with unshed tears.

“I really think I do.” 

They sit there in happy silence for a minute, and then Sam sighs. “I have to go soon.”

His heart drops a little, but he understands. “How are things on the _Hammond_?”

“Oh. Busy.” She laughs a little. “I miss the direct action sometimes, you know? There was a problem in the reactor core the other day and I had to send someone to fix it, instead of doing it myself. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that.”

Jack shrugs. “Well, it’s probably more efficient to have someone do it who doesn’t need reading glasses to see the wires.” 

“How _dare_ you,” she protests, laughing. “You know what, next time you need me to--I don’t know-- _blow up a sun,_ you can damn well do it yourself.”

“Oh, as _if_ you would let me do that,” he responds coolly, and she doesn’t argue because he’s absolutely right.

She checks her watch. “I really do have to go.” She fixes her eyes on his face as if she’s trying to memorize it. “I miss you. A lot.”

“And I miss you a lot.” Leia whines and pokes her head in front of the screen. “Leia does, too.”

“Aww. I miss you, Leia.”

Leia howls mournfully and Sam laughs through the tears gathering in her eyes. Jack pulls the dog away from the screen and makes her sit. Sam can see them both: her little family, the twinkling tree behind them, the warm glow of the whole room. They are home, and they are waiting for her to join them.

“Only three more months,” says Jack.

“Three more months.” She knows it will fly by, but right now it feels like an eternity.

“Love you, Carter. Merry Christmas.”

“I love you. Always.”

“ _Always_.”

“Merry Christmas, Jack.”

She ends the call, and their faces disappear from view. 

*

Jack sighs and puts the tablet away. He lets Leia out one more time before bed, and while he waits he stands on the deck, looking up at the sky. It’s overcast and snowing, and the edge of the galaxy feels very, very far away. He misses her so much it hurts, but when she comes home it will be to stay. He can hardly believe it; hardly imagine what it will be like to just exist together, without the threat of upcoming missions and long separations hanging over them. 

It sounds like Christmas morning.


End file.
